the scattering

[groundrules]

And now, hard siege during Alem’s first log event, covering 27 January to 12 February.

This Arc relies on information sharing and troubleshooting solutions, whether to keep the watch towers standing, find the Reaper, hold back Rathakku or evacuate civilians. Don’t be shy!

As a refresher, character have individual assignment & notes — but rest easily, they can largely go anywhere in Alem and play out any prompt below.

Click each header for scenarios!

THE SCATTERING

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Alem’s chilly welcome includes a gift of weapons, clothes and meagre food provisions. You are quickly given your posts and grudgingly tolerated by fortress natives, many of whom accuse you of collusion with Rathakku or the merchant guilds. Expect unkind tests or teasing from soldiers who want you to prove your worth.

■ SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS: rare beds and hard pallets in the Keep barracks, sharing broad rooms infantrymen. Alternatively, sleep in the Wards, with refugees or the sick.

■ ARSENAL: you receive serviceable weapons or inherited clothes — ragged, over/undersized and perhaps livened by fleas.

■ FOOD: scant, dry, hard and prioritised for the weak, young, sickly or actively fighting. Scarce additional resources, such as berries and deer meat, can be procured from the nearby forests on the lower half of the mountain.

■ ACCESS: characters can go to anywhere, except the Room of Seals. Entering the Watch Towers will be discouraged during attacks, unless you were assigned these posts.

■ Between 7-10 February, Rathakku will Claw — meaning necromancers, the dead and those who are incredibly sensitive to life and death are vulnerable to his thrall. They could be conscripted into his armies, if they exit the fortress or linger long outside. Ghosts might woo them to enter the mountain forests, and they will itch with wanderlust and a sense of incompletion. Comment here with an idea of what you'd like you character to do/a> if they are lured to Rathakku’s side.

■ NPCs: each fortress level has a designated NPC you can reach out to. Deimar will additionally be visiting the Watch Tower, following Stephen Strange’s taunts.

THE WATCH TOWERS

The first and most war-torn line of defence. The watch towers keep Alem standing — fend off their attackers.

       EASTERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Eastern Tower: Jinx, Vi, Hermione and Chu Wanning. Medic: Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy.

■ Harpies frequently charge here, using their blade-sharp claws and deep fangs. They are humanoid but carnivorous and expressly prey on tower watchers. The scent of blood lures them — so Bones should quickly bandage wounds.
■ Bad weather hides their attacks. Beware the mists of 29 January and the blizzards of 3-6 February.

■ Cut the harpies’ legs if they fly away with you — better to risk a hard fall into the mountain’s snowy than being dragged into their nests.

■ They are vulnerable to loud sounds and vibrations. Set off the great, rusted tower bells to sound the alarm and repel them.

       WESTERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Western Tower: Eleven, Xie Yun, Kahl and Eda. Medic: Sarah Bishop.

■ Flurries of arrows frequently rain down, plain, fire or poison-tipped. They are shot in two broad attacks (morning and evening) by orc archers.

■ Sarah receives a kit of local ointment antidotes, but must make haste — the sickness spreads quickly and paralyses limbs. (Effects disappear over 1-6 hours, once the antidote is applied).

■ A rare few arrows are tipped with hallucinogen substances that trigger paranoid visions.

■ Orcs may try to scale this tower, using climbing hooks. Push them down.

       SOUTHERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Southern Tower: Jon Snow, Stephen Strange, Red and Finn. Medic: Wen Qing.

■ Irenia, Frost’s Scourge, an ancient, extremely large but slow dragon stops first at the Southern Tower before proceeding to other watch posts. She will turn back, if she is stopped here.

■ The dragon breathes down frost that can paralyse you in place, or freeze limbs. Wen Qing must prioritise warming the affected.

■ A few anti-frost shields have been supplied, but their magic wanes after a few hours. Use them as a last resort.

■ Irenia’s hide is tough and leathery, but she can be deflected by continuous attack. She no longer seems to hear or see as sharply.

■ She largely flies by, breathes ice and tries to pick up watchers in her great maws, then crack their bones or throw them down on hard stone.

■ Repel her for three consecutive days and she will not return for a week.

       NORTHERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Northern Tower: Kamala Khan, Wanda Maximoff, Merrin and Jiang Cheng. Medic: Anduin.

■ Demons draw large catapults near the fortress walls and throw strong projectiles at this tower — stone, large steel balls or even human or demonic.

■ The worst missiles comprise stones alight with ‘living fire’ — an extraordinarily hot blaze that can quickly incinerate tissue. Anduin should immediately attend to burns.

■ The tower is exceptionally weathered and structurally unsound, marked by large, destabilising holes. Kerasstone asks you to fix the infrastructure or guard his repairmen.

■ The ongoing damage sometimes triggers quakes in the fragile tower — hold on and don’t fall crumbling to your deaths.

■ Use the one-man crossbows and range weapons available, or the fixed large tower crossbows to shoot back and destroy the catapults.

THE KEEP

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Life at court, when the knives come out: barracks, royal halls and Crown Prince Haiva’s medical quarters await.

KINGDOM COME

The court of Alem bustles with rival proposals: the supporters of Crown Prince Haiva want to surrender the citadel, while proponents of former Regent Thyvault seek to raise the remaining armed forces in a desperate last stand against Rathakku. King Deimar, mere months in his rule, has opted to evacuate convoys and resettle them, after sealing away any last chance of Rathakku accessing hell’s gates.

■ The supporters of Haiva, Thyvault and Deimar wage frequent wars of words that accuse Thyvault of Deimar of usurpring rule, and Haiva of being too weak to lead.

■ Thyvault’s men slyly wonder if Deimar killed the beautiful woman he was seen wooing mere months ago in the fortress grounds. Proof of her death or continued survival would benefit the three causes.

■ The woman was last seen chased by a fair-haired rider into the frosted forests that Rathakku has peopled with monstrous wolves and undead Alem huntsmen. Interrogate hunters & commoners or track her down.

■ Tempers boil over Jan. 29-Feb. 5, with arguments frequently devolving into fights and shallow stabbing. As ‘supporters’ of the three gentlemen, you should defend their cause — but do pull back blows before you kill each other.

■ Deimar punished brawlers with a few days of penitent confinement in the barracks, where you are expected to reflect on your sins and attitude, and certainly not join the cliques of heavily drinking men playing dares and cards. Hold your liquor, survive the exceptionally spicy Alem meals and take advantage of the general inebriation to ask your questions of the brass — without showing your horror when you hear them boast that Thyvault’s men drove the local ice mermaid population extinct.

IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?

The Haiva’s medics ( Bones, Sarah Bishop, Anduin and Wen Qing) are repeatedly called in to inspect his fits of sudden and elusive sickness. He exhibits a varied multitude of bizarre symptoms when his healers visit him:

■ Bones finds Haiva is a haemophiliac, his skin brittle like paper.

■ For Sarah Bishop, Haiva is overwhelmingly feverish, battling an unseen infection.

■ Wen Qing sees patches on Haiva’s skin that resemble decaying, moulding or gangrene.

■ Anduin notices Haiva’s skin feels clammy, his breathing stalled, as if his body were entering rigor mortis. He is very much alive.

Haiva is always weak, but gratefully and mysteriously cured of his symptoms within hours of his consultation. You can start a thread with him!

Info sharing with the medics’ club is caring!

THE CROSSING

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The bustling, stifling and overheated Crossing reunites the main ground-level gates and corridors of Alem’s castle. Merchants traverse the halls, volunteering their wares at exorbitant prices, while former Regent Thyvault leads the departing troops.

HAGGLE GAGGLE

■ Colluding merchants offer their less-than-stellar goods at heinous rates. You get 100 coins to haggle long, hard and to the bone for food, cloth and maps, amid war inflation. Offer your hair, your virtue, the ugly side of your fist as needed. No one will mind if you liberate a few wares.

■ Two of the most prominent merchants — boastful Batthour of the grains and stern Eles, vendor of maps, silks and steel — openly despise each other. Their apprentices frequently start brawling — stay out of their way or stoke the clashes…

■ Batthour and Eles are both open to trade, but seem distinctly disdainful of Alem, expressing pleasure from profiteering in its downfall. Group up to raise coin or other goods to trade, then put in your best offer. The next few Alem convoys require 500kg of wheat and at least three maps of eastward provinces to resettle.

THE WAR IN WORDS

■ WHEN IT GRAINS, RED POURS: Under Thyvault’s leadership, Alem’s scouts and infantry gather in the Crossing for final instructions then advance into Rathakku’s territory. You can join them on a mission to the Ivory plains at the bottom of the mountain, where a few frozen storage houses still have summer grains. Steal back the supplies, bypassing snow-buried traps and Rathakku’s lingering feral creatures.

■ King Deimar has prepared new missives for Rathakku. Multiple envoys can group up to ensure delivery down the mountain and into the warlord’s encampment in the Tattered Highlands. Your white flag buys limited patience from Rathakku’s demonic armies. Only two characters can directly interact with the warlord — Sign up for one of two spots by 23:55 GMT on 30 January. Note: Rathakku should be approached lightly.

THE WARDS

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The ill-lit Wards house the wounded, young, crippled or vulnerable of Alem, alongside those preparing to evacuate the fortress in upcoming convoys. Where there is sickness and overcrowding, expect poor provisions, the astringent scent of antiseptic, and a sense of residual decay. The lucky few sleep on pallets — while most dwellers take the hard ground and share dry bread. Soft-spoken Crown Prince Haiva visits regularly.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN

■ Weak civilians are often targeted by soldiers, who are frustrated by sharing their resources with ‘leeches’ who do not defend the citadel. Intervene to protect the vulnerable and redistribute any food that is unfairly confiscated. Prince Haiva will lend his scarce authority to correct any reported wrongdoings.

■ Learn to supply first aid, console orphaned children or widow(er)s and ease the spirits of those petrified by the recent murders.

■ A convoy prepares to leave on 9 Feb, with another due on 15 Feb. Pack the scant effects of the weak and plead for the gold or charity of the Keep’s gentry. Whatever resources you gain will greatly help the survival odds of those who resettle.

■ Inevitably, death visits some of the wounded. Professional grievers and coarse embalmers perform cleansing and mourning rites for survivors. Help them, or participate in the local habit of sharing tales of your most tragic sorrows, to distract them from their own.

WATSON ON DUTY

■ The investigative summary, as civilians can share them: five unrelated deaths took place over the past 11 weeks. Some speak superstitiously of a Reaper, who punishes the people of Alem for abandoning their fortress and sacred duty to protect the gate to hell.

■ The victims were all men aged 22-35 of diverse appearances and backgrounds. Some had minor injuries. They were all found without marks of wounding or sickness, bearing a white string bound to their wrists. One of the men was a foreign merchant.

■ Senior sorceress Althea searched the site and cleansed bodies, finding no evidence of magical interference.

■ Haiva has reinforced guards, but Deimar seems indifferent. Thyvault believes this is only an inevitably level of mundane crime.

■ Some nights, you might wake to the haunting song of a plangent woman. You enter a state of dreamy, confused hypnosis, drawn to a narrow, steep staircase you had not glimpsed before. You fumble towards the lake caves of the Gut’s Bind. Even the intrusive voices of Alem tell you to snap out of it and awaken — but your best bet is a companion’s help.

■ The staircase cannot be found again, come morning. The call is fainter for women, and does not affect the same person more than one-two nights.

■ Guards, sorcerers and civilians can answer your questions — but prepare your bribes and wooing.

THE GUT’S BIND

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It’s nice, dark and quiet in here, barring the comforting thrum of the forges. Paladins and sorcerers are hard at their elusive work, reinforcing the Room of Seals. Access to the Forges, mines and glacier lake caves remains liberal.

LAKES, MINES, MAYHEM

■ THE MINES: Characters deployed to find new escape routes find a series of corridors leading into the previously bustling gold mines, where ore resources remain well supplied. The territory is overwhelmingly shaky, with mine shafts and structures prone to collapse. They appear dusty, brittle, husked and far older than their actual age. Go deep enough and you can find sheets haphazardly strewn about and the remains of partly devoured demons.

■ THE LAKES: Saunter into a series of four interconnected ice lake caves, where the brutal cold is viciously wounding and pervasive. The first three caves give you no trouble, beyond ridiculously sharp icicles waiting to drop down. As you enter the fourth cave, you find gleaming stretches of golden, gleaming… scales that float on the lake waters. Grab one to study — but beware the starved creature that guards them.

■ THE FORGES: some entirely abandoned, some functional, all well-equipped at this time. Settle down alone, or in the company of Kerasstone’s people — the old blood that preceded even Alem’s settlement and holy seal in the mountains.

■ Keep an ear out for sudden sounds or unexpected steps behind you, as you travel the tighter and tighter passageways to find or shovel new exit routes through the mountain: some of Rathakku’s creatures appear to have… wandered in. They camouflage as stone and lay perfectly still in wait of their prey, before descending. They’re vulnerable to strong light and a jolly smiting.

LOCK YOUR DOORS

■ Paladins and sorcerers enter the heavily warded and barricaded Room of Seals every few hours. They emerge exhausted, their resources drained. Some also bear heavy gashes.

■ Characters are barred from entering and incarcerated for a day in one of the Keep’s jails or brought before Galatea’s judgement, if they attempt to sneak in.

■ Groans and screams can be occasionally heard from within, followed by spikes in the sense of deathliness of the place. Some paladins are never seen exiting.

■ You have one chance to enter, at midnight on 1 February, when the Gut’s Bind erupts into calls for healers to attend an emergency. Collapsed paladins are urgently pulled out, while sorcerers attempt to ward the room before ultimately fleeing to help their brethren. You can infiltrate and stay inside for 20 minutes before the stoked anger of the room completely overwhelms you, and you begin to bodily attack everyone and everything around you. This is a dangerous route: check in for one of three findings scenarios.

QUESTIONS

Comments

[weifinder]

( She calls for him, and it's decades past, it's the present, it's the tragedy that looms in their future. This is a woman; she is a stranger, and her children grieve without knowing they yet grieve for her passing in a way they both know, both understand.

He feels death in this woman, the slow tide that swallows without anger, without grief, but with forgiveness, acceptance. There is beauty in death that takes all who come to its threshold, who doesn't turn any back, but from whom those who find it decide not to be welcomed through, not to find their way to the other side. Who linger, who cry, who scream. Who are kept, who beg otherwise, or know nothing to do as much on their own.

Death becomes her, and she, twice widowed, one of a living partner, now of life itself, breathes shallow, sweats cold, and cannot see clearly to make their forms. Mouths with chapped lips the nothing of her unconscious state, but breathes, and exhales with sickly sweet compromise absent from her lungs. )

Wen Qing, this won't be like before. The magic here can help, but it's... it's not the ones you know.

( Not Wen Ning. She cannot be freed in the sense that he was, once his mind returned. Returned twice, absent those years he'd wandered alone and frightened, hiding, a threat in mind but not in deed.

A glance to the children, the low word to her, his heart beating under the loud, heavy promise of what might come. Death stalks close, he knows, he senses it in the dying around them, in the caverns below them, lurking outside the stone walls above. Death comes closer still. )

Would you have me save her? Knowing that.

( Knowing that she will die and rise again, as her body already commands her to an ending, and the world around grows no more caring, no more cruel, than it always will be. )

[silverneedles]

[ Death is a familiar feeling to them both, in different ways; Wen Qing knows Wei Wuxian picks up on the death just as quickly as she does, even if they look for different signs. Swelling in her stomach, an issue that might have been avoided had she come in earlier; it's not their respective deaths, not Wen Ning's, not any death that loomed over them.

And yet, despite the dissimilar nature and the fact that they do not know her or these children, Wen Qing can't leave her behind. Can't leave those children behind who huddle together, watching with fearful eyes.

Life is different here. Death is different. But even knowing that, Wen Qing nods. Lips pressed together in a pale line, a furrow between her brows, she reaches out and grabs his sleeve, pulling him a little closer. ]

They are children. Without a mother here, without family, what hope do they have? [ It is an unkind place they have ventured to. War and death loom close, and who is to say what would happen to these children with no one to care for them? Even the oldest won't have much of a voice. ]

I will help however I can.

[weifinder]

( He knows better. They both do, the harshness of orphaning in war or outside of it, of being children alone. What benefit, he doesn't wonder, to having a sibling; his first time, he'd had nothing but the streets and the dogs that fought for scraps like he did, and his fear, running away from all those teeth.

The teeth here belong to the dead and the miserable creatures of magic and worse in the Gut's Bind. The way out for these children, and a mother, resurrected, is whole, but forever open to the influence he might exert, to the influence of anyone tied deeply with death. It's a burden taken on with a stranger to whom he owes nothing, to whom she is nothing to him or those he cares most deeply for.

Her children weep.

He bows his head.

Determination is not a balm, but it slides over his expression, hiding the hurts and regrets that come now from age and knowing. )

All right.

( Or measured in wrongness, at minimum. )

Children, I need you to go eat while we're helping your mother. She'd want you to eat, wouldn't she? Or else how can you be strong enough to help her after she feels better?

( A smile, and the time given to convincing, and the older child's understanding of this request as go. This is his second harrowing undertaking with Wen Qing, where she aids him in what she can and he keeps a life from passing beyond where most can reach. Or now, in this woman's dying, gentles its arrival, and rebuilds her, with magic and science, into a woman who lives again.

Into a woman he can feel as another presence he might reach out to, familiar like once the yin iron in its tiger seal had been at his hip, the sword given new life as an implement of power. One that he broke to keep from the world that salivated after it, and here, one master patiently waits beyond the walls, and they, within.

It is a long task, it's too short, and it leaves him hollowed out less for the needs of his energy, the manipulations of magic here, the envisioning of her organs and his asking Wen Qing the whole time to confirm or detail what he sensed, so this goes smoothly, so this woman lives strongly after. Resurrected, and tied to him, but it must be worth it on some level, even as he wants to weep for the pain of it when she sits up, weak, and embraces the younger child, collapsed across her legs.

She still needs healing time, but a more normal kind, for as much as normal will ever again apply to her. She's moved beyond the simple living or dying, into the death-touched and forever vulnerable. He says as much, softly, and her fear sings to him, just as his stomach turns and he must leave this veritable bedside, with an apology.

Wei Wuxian smiles and nods his head and moves away from mother and children, thin framed and sallow cheeked and smudged beneath his eyes, because where Wen Ning had been able to move beyond him, had not been linked to Wei Wuxian indelibly, this woman is. And there is nothing he can do to free her from that, or the weakness therein. Only hope to keep her and her children away from Rakkathu's touch, and whichever other death lord looms and lurks after.

He needn't make it far. Just enough to be beyond the ill and dying, to find space on a wall in a nook that leaves him less visible to any, and then: the collapse of it, back thudding against stone, head hitting a moment after, and the stare blank as his expression loses all life, all vibrancy, and he concentrates on breathing. Just breathing. )

[silverneedles]

[ Wen Qing watches the children walk away, sure the oldest understands this is the end. But it won't be the end, not if they can manage another miracle.

Wei Wuxian works, his fingers deft and capable, and Wen Qing assists, challenging energy where she can, doing her own work when she needs. It's a long process but not too long; not as long as the days Wen Ning laid on the stone, unmoving, none of them sure if he would survive. She carefully doesn't think about that; these situations aren't alike. They're in control here and able.

A war-torn world is no place for children alone. That's what Wen Qing whispers to herself, when the woman wakes, Wei Wuxian with his face too pale, the children quiet in their relief. Like Wen Ning, she doesn't regret it, but the consequences are left too open, too broad. Wei Wuxian looks like death. She lets him wander off while she says a few things to the woman they just saved, a few important reminders, notes about what to eat, and then she sets off to find Wei Wuxian.

It's not hard to find him; she knows from experience the sorts of places to escape to here and the places Wei Wuxian likes. She doesn't say anything when she first joins him, simply letting him breathe, although after a minute, asks, ] How is your energy?

[weifinder]

( He slumps further, when she joins him. As if the air holding him up were his lungs, and it all leaves, and his bones don't recall their forms. He smiles, not turning his head, only cutting his eyes her way and letting that, too, be as much energy as he cares to expend at this point. )

Low. Recovering. Won't be any trouble, unless you want me running races. Going to have to wait a day for me to win you any merit.

( The jests falling a touch flat, but he tries. He always tries. )

[silverneedles]

You're not running around for at least a day. Doctor's orders.

[ There are probably other instructions she should give him, about rest and hydration and eating, but in the midst of their situation, it seems futile.

At least they saved her. The kids won't grow up without their mother there. Wen Qing lifts her head, looking up at the sky above them. ] The kids. They'll be okay.

[weifinder]

( He says none of the things that flit through his mind, darker and sequestered in places that run toward tender wounds and seepages he ignores for the most part. His eyes close, and he offers, again, that smile that isn't quite: )

Walking it is. No running, no running, I hear. Doctor's orders.

( Those kids won't be okay. No one through a war in surviving is okay, but they survive it, they grow, they learn or don't learn. They have a chance. With a parent still around, they have a form of protection that is hard for anyone to deny, but she too needs protecting. He feels her. He's tied to her, in no particularly invasive sense, but an awareness.

Which makes her vulnerable to the pustule of death magic that throbs outside the stone walls, clawing and patient. He shudders internally at the disgusting reality of each of these lords of death, at their power, their sway. )

It's what we tell ourselves.

( They'll be okay. )

Sometimes it's even the truth.

[silverneedles]

Sometimes.

[ Rarely, from her experience. Those final months, in the Burial Mounds, moments of peace even among the worry, the happiest she had ever been. No looming specter of her uncle, the freedom to simply be, surrounded by her family and friends. They had been alright.

In moments, they could pretend the cultivation world wasn't a problem. But it had been there, pressing down, only a matter of time. Much like war presses on them now and traps that woman and those kids into something bigger, beyond themselves. No children should need to see war, but what should be is not the reality.

Wondering if they did the right thing isn't a path Wen Qing cares to wander down, so instead, she hunts through her sleeves, digging out some small, hard candies. She passes one to Wei Wuxian. ]

Eat something tonight. Don't pass your rations off to someone else.

[weifinder]

( He takes the sweet on reflex, hand out, but blinks down at it, as if he's perplexed by its existence. It doesn't last, with her words that follow, and the attempt at an aggrieved look of innocence he makes next is predictable, but likewise sincere...

... in its way. )

Me? I would never!

( He doesn't go for rations at all if he's left to his own devices, which is why his husband is best in charge of seeing him fed. )

You too, ah?

[silverneedles]

[ His look of innocence only gets a raised eyebrow, unimpressed. ]

I will know. [ In that way that mothers and sisters know: they don't, but they assume you haven't eaten or slept or had enough water. ]

Me too?

[weifinder]

Eat. Drink. Rest.

( And in the way of all brothers and friends, gives her a droll, tired look in return. )

They need you more than me.

[silverneedles]

Now that they've got her back.

[ The thanks to you remains unsaid, but it's there all the same. ]

Is it possible to rest here?

[weifinder]

We managed in the early days.

( of the burial mounds, of yiling. he smiles, or attempts it, feeling the awareness of this resurrected mother as a firefly in his soul. )

I won't rest if you don't, you know it.

[silverneedles]

We did.

[ somehow. this place feels much like those early days in the burial mounds.

She shifts and straightens, glancing back at the resurrected mother and her kids, still huddled together. ]

Go find your husband and sleep. I've got a patient to check on before I can.

[weifinder]

( he breathes out long and low and into something like a snort that aborts into a sigh. fondness doesn't erase the hard angles of his face, nor does it make the shadows below it seem less stark. it softens his eyes, somewhat, and he grunts as he shifts forward, then hups himself to one knee. )

Don't let it be before too long, ah?

( hand braced against the wall, he catches his balance, lowers his hand to touch her shoulder, gently. his head descends without the need for thought, and the brief, chaste kiss he presses to the side of her head is a long apology, and a lifetime of gratitude. she deserved the life she had stolen. she deserved more than reliving the traumas they'd shared, and the ones they had not. )

Or I'll come find you, make sure you sleep. Lan Zhan can swallow his vinegar like medicine.

( and he's up, something like a smile on his lips so that the ache under his breastbone, the woman and her children, his friend who lives now and who is met with such callous cruelty back home, can stifle, suffocate. so affection can be what he feels instead of the despair, and he is there, and he is walking, and he is not leaving, he is simply trading spaces until he sees her again. )